{"id":500476,"date":"2026-06-15T09:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500476\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:06:08","slug":"the-sky-today-on-monday-june-15-mercury-at-greatest-eastern-elongation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500476\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Monday, June 15: Mercury at greatest eastern elongation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tMercury lines up with Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon in the evening sky as the solar system\u2019s smallest planet reaches its greatest eastern elongation from the Sun.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1533\" height=\"899\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Mercury-east-elong-06152026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A simulated twilight sky looking west on June 15, 2026, 30 minutes after sunset. Venus shines brilliantly in the upper left, with Jupiter below it and Mercury visible in the center of the frame. A thin crescent Moon sits low on the horizon to the lower right, and the twin stars Pollux and Castor are visible in the upper right against the warm orange glow of the sunset sky.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMercury lines up with Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon in the evening sky as the solar system\u2019s smallest planet reaches its greatest eastern elongation from the Sun. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-june-12-to-19-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">June 14: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-sunday-june-14-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Irene nears opposition<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">This afternoon, Mercury reaches greatest eastern elongation at 4 P.M. EDT, standing 25\u00b0 from the Sun. You\u2019ll find the solar system\u2019s smallest planet in the evening sky, now shining at magnitude 0.5.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Half an hour after sunset, a delicate waxing crescent Moon \u2014 just 2% lit \u2014 is setting, just 5\u00b0 above the western horizon. Mercury will pop out to the Moon\u2019s upper left, sitting in the middle of Gemini the Twins. To Mercury\u2019s upper left are brighter Jupiter and then Venus, shining at magnitudes \u20131.8 and \u20134.0, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After moonset, Mercury is the first planet to disappear, sinking below the horizon shortly after 10 P.M. local daylight time. Jupiter and Venus remain visible for at least half an hour more, with the latter staying aloft the longest, setting around 11 P.M. local daylight time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through a telescope, Mercury\u2019s disk appears some 38% lit and spans 8\u201d on the sky. Compare that first with Venus, which is 75% illuminated and 14\u201d across. Jupiter dwarfs them both, its fully illuminated disk stretching 32\u201d across. You may catch sight of the gas giant\u2019s four Galilean moons \u2014 additionally, Io begins a transit around 9:50 P.M. CDT, with its shadow becoming visible on the cloud tops a little under an hour later, visible from the western half of the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:30 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 5:36 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 9:45 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (2%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Mercury lines up with Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon in the evening sky as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-500476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}